New blog at CR

I've started a Cardrunners blog: My CR Blog. Since I'm only really using this for poker, I figure I'll stick my blog with a bunch of other poker blogs.

So far, though, I like Blogger better:

• RSS feeds. Zimba has said this is coming at CR.
• Comments emailed to me (don't know what happens on CR, since no one has commented ;).
• Can upload images directly to the post. At CR, I think you need to use an image hosting service like image shack.

One thing I really don't like about Blogger, which I don't know if CR will have, is the ability to get comments at the same time you get a post in an RSS feed. I know Wordpress has that, and since I use a feed aggregator, I would really like it.

For all of you in the study crew, do you care which software we use?

Student application

I've been toying with the idea of hiring a coach for a while. The main reasons I have not yet done so stem from my stakes and my schedule. Well, the stakes are hopefully about to be at the level I had thought to be reasonable. Borrowing heavily from a post by Verneer on Cardrunners, here is my background, what I'll bring to the table, and my hopes/expectations of the coach and the coaching process. If anyone who is being coached or any coach has some feedback on how reasonable any of this is, please let me know.

Background
If you really want details, the first couple posts in this blog have more than you want -- maybe this post alone will have more than you want! Bottom line is that I started to take poker seriously in early 2005 as a recreational player, grinding up 6 max limit from .50/1 to $5/$10 until UIGEA. I was a consistent, if unspectacular winner over that time....just over 3 BB/100. (I think that would be decent now for LHE, but back then the games were great, and that winrate included all stakes I played.)

After the US legislation fallout, I cashed out almost all my roll and played only live for a few months. Sometime this year, I decided to take the couple hundred I still had on Full Tilt to learn NL and donkaments from the ground up. Quickly decided that I much preferred cash games, and here we are. My game has subtly changed over the last few months, as I've digested more NL content and started up a blog/study crew. So, here are results since 9/1.

Disclaimer: the results for August were the sux. You can see those from a previous entry. You can also see that my game has changed since then as well, though. The sample I've shown I've run hotter than heck. For the year, I am 3.6 PTBB/100 over 70k hands across 10NL, 25NL, and 50NL, most at 25NL. Not shabby, but certainly room for improvement.

[Update Nov. 1: Crossed my bankroll threshold last night, so even though the stats shown are for NL 25 and NL 50, I am now moving up to 100 NL with 19 BI, prepared to move back down to 50 NL at 15 BI.]





What I Bring

I take poker study seriously, and have for about 3 years. So, I am going to treat any coaching with a high amount of dedication. I have a very (too much at times) competitive nature, to the point that I actually enjoy being told what I am doing wrong, especially when I can get an explanation of why it's wrong and what I can do differently so that I don't make the same mistake in the future. No one has to worry about hurting my feelings.

On the other hand, I don't need or want to have every last detail spelled out for me. I won't be afraid to push back on a coach's suggestion if I feel that I can support a counterpoint, but mostly, I'm looking for someone to just point out where I need to think about differently, rather than spoon feeding everything. I think this works well in poker conversations because a lot of actions depend on your assumptions. So, as long as you are thinking about the correct set of pros and cons for a situation, you are going to be in good shape. If a coach wants to teach someone to fish rather than just giving someone a fish, I'll work well with them.

I mentioned earlier that one thing holding me back from getting a coach is my schedule. I've got a busy job and a relatively hectic life besides poker. I've been logging 2000-2500 hands per week, four tabling, which I know is not much. I do use downtime at work for surfing poker sites, watching videos, and chatting with my review crew, which gives me some decent amount of study time, but time is definitely a precious commodity. I've blogged about some monthly goals the last couple months, so you can get in idea of what I try to do.

Hopes and expectations

The biggest goal I have now is recognizing when and how to change gears. My game doesn't really change that much. It's a decent game to beat the lower levels, but a decent player who adjusts to TAGs well could feast on me. Also, some specific situations I'd like help with are 3-bet pots, playing against floaters, and playing top pair/overpair hands. On the last, I've got value betting down (good), but feel like I probably pound too indiscriminately and probably don't get away from quite enough hands (bad).

Having coached and been coached in other areas, I assume that the main benefit will be uncovering problems that I'm not aware of, or not fully aware anyway. In general, you get knowledge through reviewing yourself, from posting on forums, and from working with friends on your game, but I don't think there is a substitute for individualized attention an expert gives you.

Assuming I start with a coach about the same time I start 100NL, I would want to work with someone to figure out how much and what type of coaching is best for me. Going into it, I think it would be to either sweat me or review PT with me, in order to identify some systemic deficiency, and then of course talk about correcting it. But really, I'm not sure at all the best way to approach, and would be open to hearing a coach's ideas. There's also the matter of quantity. For the amount of hands and level I play, is it better to have 2 sessions a month with a very high quality coach providing extremely tailored coaching, or 4 sessions a month with someone not quite as proficient and who has a more cookie cutter approach (but who is still a good player and has a strong approach)?

Something Verneer mentioned is that his students could/would sweat other lessons he gives, or at least that others would be sweating your sessions. I think that's a great idea, and although I hadn't thought of it before, the ability to form a serious crew is great. I kickstarted one made up of other low limit CR members, and those sessions have been fantastic, regardless of whether I'm the one being reviewed or I'm part of the review crew. I would look for a coach's own student crew to be an extension of that, with one more expert leader (the coach). In general, I would hope that a coach would be somewhat available beyond just the lesson times (email, AIM, forum, review my blog periodically, whatever) for quick questions, as long as it wasn't overwhelming.

Speaking of overwhelming, I am going to end this post now. It started -- several hours and interruptions earlier -- as a quick post with a tiny bit of background and a few other thoughts. It's certainly grown beyond that, but at least for any coach who I send this post to, if you can get through it, then you certainly have some review stamina ;).

I don't suspect anyone will come across this without me initiating the contact, but if you have and you'd like to speak with me about your coaching or if you're looking for a coach yourself and want to discuss it, feel free to leave a reply here or PM me on either Cardrunners or 2+2. My name on both boards is Disconnected.

Back from a little break

I just got back in town and trying to get unburied at work, plus I caught a little sore throat, unfortunately. With no computer, it was a total break from both work and poker, which was nice and relaxing. I didn't take along a poker book, so it really was a break, for a little over a week. I wish the timing had been a little different, as there have been much better times for me to take a break. The last few weeks, I've been running pretty well, and I liked the group sessions we started.

I'll probably use today to get caught up on work, then try to catch up on the blogs and maybe watch a video or review some old hands to get ready for playing, but I might not play until Wednesday or Thursday....I'm pretty tired, and also distracted by all the things that can pile up in a week.

Plus, I'm running out of space on my DVR and need to watch/clear some shows out! One thing I'm much better about these days is not playing with the TV on something I care much about. I don't mind it if the wife has something on while I play, but if it's something I want to watch, I stop my session. I used to drop a table or two, but I think it's better to just stop altogether.

All the goals I set for myself seem pretty out of reach with half the month over, but maybe I'll make up some ground as I clear the other stuff off my plate and focus again on poker the last part of the month.

What other blogs do you read?

Outside my CR crew, I don't read poker blogs any longer. A few that I used to read regularly have diminished. Ed Miller has a good one: http://www.notedpokerauthority.com

There are some good ones on Cardrunners, but I'm so used to getting RSS feeds that I doubt I'll really follow the CR ones until they enable RSS feeds.

Speaking of blogs, my number one complaint about Blogger is that you can't download comments for each post, but rather have to subscribe to each post's comments individually. That seems just ridiculous. If anyone knows how to get at comments without subscribing to them specifically, I would love to know.

Goals for the month

I failed most of my September goals, although it wasn't utter failure. I think that the work I did towards my goals helped quite a bit, so I'll keep the goals pretty much the same for October, although I'll maybe change the targets.

First, a target to actual comparison in September:

1. 10,000 hands. This one I met, pretty much right on the nose (10,403). Didn't think I was going to make it, but I had an unexpected chunk of time the last week of the month to push me over the hump.
2. 100 posts across forums, blogs, chats. I tried to keep a tally on a spreadsheet, just to see how much I was really participating in various communities, and only counted posts and chats with some content to them (so, like all the posts saying nothing more than good luck, nice job, I agree, etc. don't count). With that in mind, I counted 28 posts. So, well short, even if I missed a few.
3. Review 75% of the hands I play. I used a comment in PT sessions to indicate whether I reviewed them, and I counted 5,562 reviewed hands, so a little under 50%. I got some good insights from these self reviews, and I won't do a review unless I'm concentrating on it pretty hard, so I'd rather review 50% of the hands this way as opposed to rushing through 75% or more. I just need to make the time to review more.
4. Actively study 10 CR videos. I watched quite a few, but I'll judge this one based on how many videos I took more than a couple notes on (where they differ from what I would do, or a key concept one of the pros discussed. Based on that higher threshold, I only actively studied 6 videos. 3 full pages of typed notes, though, so I did study those 6 well.
5. Tighten up in early position. My UTG VPIP was 9.78 and my button VPIP was 24.16, or 147% higher. Note that I was not exactly super loose on the button, but I was way tighter UTG, so I'll consider it a success.
6. Practice hand-reading. Absolute failure from a PT review standpoint, but I did have some success while actually playing....there were a couple big hands where I paused before acting to review my opponents' ranges, and a couple times changed my action for the better as it turned out. Nevertheless, I still think I should go through some PT hands, not at game speed, and try to put people on ranges. Thinking about it during the hand is good, but not enough. With the replayer available, and the ability to filter only for hands that go to showdown, this is too easy to avoid, unless I think I'm already an expert hand reader (I don't).

Like I said, I think that for the most part, these are the right sorts of measurable goals. There are some you can't objectively measure like don't tilt, play your "A" game all the time, and others. But for October, I am going to keep them measurable, and let the rest take care of itself. Same 6 goals but with different targets outlined below, as well as a new one.

1. Play 7,000 hands. I'm reducing this over a normal month for 2 reasons. I'll be on vacation (without computer) for 8-10 days. I'm starting play at a new level, and rather than 4 tables will play 2 or 3 as I ease into the games, and build up my database.
2. 50 community contributions. Again, this is content-filled posts, blogs, chats, etc. Fluff does not count. I'm lowering this from last month both because I'm away as well as that I fell so short last month, maybe I was too unrealistic.
3. Review 75% of the hands I play. I fell short of this, but ideally I'd like to review all sessions, and I think this is a crucial part of study.
4. Review 8 CR videos. Again, this goes beyond just watching a video. It extends to taking copious notes and paying full attention to the video. I thought this would be easy since I watch a lot of them, but it's actually pretty difficult to give 100% attention and note down everything important in them. At least it's difficult for me (I get too easily distracted).
5. Maintain tight UTG stats. Same as last month: UTG VPIP should be half that of button.
6. Practice hand reading. Let's make it easier than last month. How about just all the showdown hands in a 1,000 chunk of hands.
7. Participate in group session reviews. I'm excited about this one. A bunch of us had our first review today, and I think it went really well. My goal for this one is to participate in at least one per week that I am in town.
   

A better month

Just a quick post for September results. I don't have a lot of time right now, so how I did vs. my goals will have to wait (I didn't do so well meeting them, though). However, my results were a lot better than last month, although certainly not crushing the games by any stretch.


I wanted to be tighter in general, especially from early position, and I succeeded (see next picture for position stats). One area to focus on in putting money in from the SB, I'm pretty happy with my blind play in general. The results have been good.

My steal attempts are low by a couple percentage points compared to how I usually run. Partly, that is just generally tightening up in borderline situations, but I'm not really trying to tighten up from CO and BTN. I have stopped stealing so much with ace-rag, especially from the SB and CO spots. I keep a wide range when my image is tight, but if I feel at all like I have been active, I'm passing on ace-rag for now.

My showdown percentage seems a little on the low side, but not horrible, but on the other hand, I'm not winning enough showdowns that I see. So, probably, I need to be looking at spots where I'm either too aggressive with good hands and push people off their second-best hands, or I am calling down inappropriately.


I like my position numbers in general, especially the differential between UTG and BTN. The sample sizes here get pretty small with just 10k hands, though. Not sure about the couple apparent open-limps....could be misclicks I guess, as it's not part of my game. Anyway, I'm raising just about all the pots I enter from UTG and MP, so I don't think I've got a problem there.

As I said above, my VPIP from SB looks a little suspicious, especially since I'm not coming in with a raise a lot. However, my results from the blinds have been phenomenal, especially defending. Again sample sizes are pretty small, and in all likelihood, I probably hit a couple big hands when defending, or I 3-bet a premium pair and got played back at, or something. 20% from the SB seems high, though, so I'll look in more on that.


Well, this is a pleasant graph. Looks like I ran a bit better than expected when the money went in. I do remember one hand where I got in with 2nd set vs. top set and then hit my one-outer for quads. Perhaps that's where the blue line shot up over the red line? Anyway, if I'm reading this graph correctly, I ran quite well for a bit, and then continued to run about as expected for the rest of the month.


September seemed to start about where August left off, but I had a couple nice runs during the month. Here's hoping it continues in October!

We don't have a game with you

If you've played any amount of golf, you've probably laid some money on the line. I'm part of a group of 18 guys who play together every weekend. It's pretty cool, we have 3 standing tee times every weekend morning, and we just make up teams amongst whomever shows up, and we play a small stakes team match. $2 for front, $2 for back, $2 for overall, 50 cents for closest to the pin on the par 3's, and a $1 in the middle for the 2 best low net scores.

Every Saturday. Every Sunday. The group (not me) has been doing this for a little over 20 years, members coming and going. The stakes are tiny, but the competition is fierce. It's a little comical to see a bunch of guys with 6-figure incomes (and I bet at least a couple guys are closer to 7 figures than 5 figures) gloat over quarters at the end of the round.

Today, 8 of us went to a new local course to check it out. The email said we'll play 3 (meaning we had to count 3 guys' scores each hole out of our foursome). Fine.

The course was good, but pretty difficult, and the new greens were rock-hard. As a team, we hit both par 3's on the front, but neither one was really close. As we were going up the seventh fairway, our opponents were coming down the sixth, and we asked them how many greenies they got. Their response: "One. But we don't have a game with you. We didn't agree before we teed off."

That came from the captain of the other team (our captains are just the guys with the lowest handicaps). He's a nice guy, but if he played poker, he would definitely be an angle shooter. There's certainly room to be an angle shooter in golf, especially in match play, and he's done it time and again. It's actually a running joke among the rest of the crew. Off the course, he's got to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met, and would give anyone the shirt off his back. But something in him changes when he gets in competition mode.

I'm writing about this because I've been annoyed about it all day, just on principle. Among our foursome, after the obligatory "nice shot" when one of us hit it well, the next most popular word the rest of the day was "chickenshit."

But I'm also writing about this because I've been thinking about some of the ways competition changes me. Although I wouldn't pull a stunt like this, I've got other things I really need to work on when things don't work out. And they apply not only to sports, but to poker as well. Even though I know better, my big problem in any sort of competition is getting way too pissed off, both at myself and even worse at my teammates and opponents sometimes.

Anything I do on an even semi-regular basis, I put in a lot of effort to do well. And when that effort isn't immediately gratified, I lose patience and get frustrated at least. I envy and admire those of you who take hardships in stride. It must make things so much more enjoyable. So, I think that's something to shoot for as well as all the other goals. In addition to making my favorite activities more enjoyable for me, it will make me a more pleasant guy to be around, a nice little win/win life lesson.

There haven't been a lot of hands because I haven't been playing much, but over a few thousand this month, I'm running a little better than expected on my all-ins, which is a welcome change from the recent past. I'm up for the month, and 4 buy-ins away from moving up a level on Full Tilt to equal the level I'm at on Stars, as I'm keeping my rolls for each site separate for now.

I'm still having trouble in re-raised pots, especially when I'm not the aggressor. Knowing I lack the confidence to play them, I'm being more inclined to fold. More on that later.

Group review almost ready to start

Grinder, Losbert, and I are waiting for a fourth so we can get started with the study group idea from my last post. pkr_brat was first to comment, but I haven't heard back. mongoose is up for the idea.

pkr_brat and mongoose: post a comment with your email address (or email me at pokerrow at gmail with your addresses).

Anyone who missed it the first time and is interested, see my last post and leave a comment or send an email. I think groups of 4 would be ideal, but depending on the interest, we can probably adapt. I'm excited about the idea, and I think it will complement live sweat sessions nicely. We'll see.

Speaking of live sweat sessions, I hooked up with michaeyk in between his world travels, and had a nice extended sweat session with him....thanks again Mike! He identified a couple bad plays on my part, especially one where I double-barreled in a bad spot (which is most of the time at the micros), something that can get expensive. Looking forward to continuing when you get back.

Perhaps it was the lucky charm of a sweat session, but I had a rare cooler transformed into suckout that went my way:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $24.75
BB: $25.80
UTG: $17.05
MP: $31.15
CO: $25.00
Hero (BTN): $24.90

Preflop: Hero is dealt 7c 7h (6 Players)
UTG raises to $0.85, MP folds, CO calls $0.85, Hero calls $0.85, SB folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($3.50) Ah 2h 7d (4 Players)
BB checks, UTG checks, CO checks, Hero bets $2.65, BB folds, UTG raises all-in to $16.20, CO folds, Hero calls $13.55

Turn: ($35.90) Ah 2h 7d 8c (2 Players - 1 All-In)

River: ($35.90) Ah 2h 7d 8c 7s (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $35.90 ($1.75 Rake)

UTG had As Ad (a full house, Aces full of Sevens) and LOST (-$17.05)
Hero had 7c 7h (four of a kind, Sevens) and WON (+$17.10)

My idea for group review

I'd like to get a regular group of 3-4 folks for a group session review. Due to my schedule, I'm pretty limited and unpredictable in my ability to log on to a poker site (mostly due to work throughout the day), but I can make some time for chat, Skype, blogs, etc. So my proposal is the following:

1. Rotate the reviewee. In other words, only one person will be the subject at a time.
2. The reviewee will have a session for review. My idea here is to play your normal session (if you usually play 8 tables, do it for this exercise, if you usually only 2-table, that's OK, too).
3. Commit to a session you'll use before you play. In other words, don't select the session afterwards when you see how well you did, etc. We'll do enough of these that the good and bad should come out over time.
4. Email the first 200 hands of the session (I can help people get the hands out of PokerTracker if needed). We probably won't have time to go through all 200 hands.
5. Schedule an hour where we can all be available....AIM, Skype, Telephone, whatever.
6. We will go through hands in the order played...most of them will go quickly as they will be routine preflop folds. But in doing reviews before, you never know when something you think is routine, someone else will have a comment about. If anyone can figure out how to do this using remote desktop viewing, that would be cool, but otherwise, we should all be able to follow along.

If this sounds interesting to anyone reading, leave a comment with what times work (these are times to meet). I personally don't care what stakes people play -- when I played minbet, I got pretty good insight working with people from stakes above and pretty far below -- but perhaps others care.

As for me, I would be available generally from 9AM to 5PM U.S. Pacific time on weekdays, since I can schedule an hour at work more easily than I can schedule an hour at home :). I play 25NL on Full Tilt and 50 NL on PokerStars.

Some hands

Haven't posted any hands in a while, so here are 3. They're large pot hands, catching up on some August backlog.

Hand 1: Villain is 39/26/2.2.
Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $25.00
BB: $25.00
UTG: $4.55
MP: $34.10
CO: $43.90
BTN: $46.55

Preflop: Hero is dealt Kc Kh (6 Players)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.85, BTN folds, Hero raises to $2.80, BB folds, CO calls $1.95

Flop: ($5.85) 4s Jd 9c (2 Players)
Hero bets $4.05, CO raises to $8.10, Hero calls $4.05

Turn: ($22.05) 4s Jd 9c Ad (2 Players)
Hero bets $10.55, CO raises all-in to $33.00, Hero calls all-in for $3.55
Uncalled bet of $18.90 returned to CO

Don't like the turn play much. If I'm calling the flop, it's to CRAI on the turn, and betting the ace isn't the way, and that bet size is terrible since I have so little behind. Plus, once that ace comes out, I need to play for a smaller pot, not a larger one. I think it's fine to continue with the hand, since he's not likely raising with just an ace on the flop -- of course he could have AJ. But most of the time when stacks go in here, I'm in bad shape, I think, so my plan to CRAI should probably be to check/call, and lead the river if he checks behind the turn.

River: ($50.25) 4s Jd 9c Ad 9d (2 Players - 2 All-In)

Pot Size: $50.25 ($2.50 Rake)

Results:
CO had 9s 8s (three of a kind, Nines) and WON (+$22.75)
Hero had Kc Kh (two pair, Kings and Nines) and LOST (-$25.00)
LOL....he played the hand worse than I did, but he got there :(.

Hand 2: Villain is 42/14/1.8.
Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $25.00
BB: $21.95
UTG: $14.20
CO: $15.60
BTN: $24.50

Preflop: Hero is dealt 8c Jc (5 Players)
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.90, BB calls $0.65

A note on the raise size...I use a program called Full Tilt Shortcuts to automate bets, and it shorts the preflop raise size by the amount of the SB when you are actually in the SB, and sometimes I forget to increment it by that SB. Don't think it really matters, since it's still a little more than a pot-sized raise.

Flop: ($1.80) 9c 7c Jd (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.80, BB calls $1.80

Turn: ($5.40) 9c 7c Jd 3s (2 Players)
Hero bets $4.05, BB raises to $15.75, Hero raises all-in to $22.30, BB calls all-in for $3.50
Uncalled bet of $3.05 returned to Hero

If he (effectively) pushed on the flop, I would have called instantly, and I still think that this call is OK, but I'm not nearly as sure. It still seems like it is a semibluff a lot of times here, and if I'm behind, I would have a ton of outs. Plus, it's a blind battle, so I would need to call lighter than normal. OK?

River: ($43.90) 9c 7c Jd 3s Ah (2 Players - 2 All-In)

Pot Size: $43.90 ($2.15 Rake)

Results:
BB had 7d 9s (two pair, Nines and Sevens) and WON (+$19.80)
Hero had 8c Jc (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$21.95)


Hand 3: Villain is 43/0, so I'm pretty comfortable isolating him with a weak suited ace.
Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $9.75
BB: $10.65
UTG: $21.25
MP: $16.35
CO: $25.50
Hero (BTN): $35.55

Preflop: Hero is dealt Ac 6c (6 Players)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO folds, Hero raises to $1.25, 2 folds, MP calls $1.00

Flop: ($2.85) 3h 5c 4h (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero bets $3.45, MP calls $3.45

Normally, my c-bets are from 75% to 100% of the pot, but sometimes, I will overbet the pot with both made and drawing hands.

Turn: ($9.75) 3h 5c 4h 2s (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero bets $4.45, MP raises all-in to $11.65, Hero calls $7.20

Seems standard.

River: ($33.05) 3h 5c 4h 2s Jh (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $33.05 ($1.65 Rake)

Results:
MP had 8h 7h (a flush, Jack high) and WON (+$15.05)
Hero had Ac 6c (a straight, Six high) and LOST (-$16.35)

I'm going through my backlog of big hands in order, whether I won or lost, played it poorly or well, just to make sure I'm not biasing anything with my selection. If the money gets in preflop and I've got KK or AA, I don't think that I'll post it because win or lose, it's not going to be controversial, and if my worst problem is ever that I get it all in with KK, then I'll have a great career :).

If a lot of money goes in postflop, I want to post it, even if I think I got a bad beat or got coolered, I may be looking at it incorrectly. Dodgyken correctly says that he hates it when someone just says they're running badly. I think that one reason people say that so much (there are certainly others) is because they don't recognize that bad play on their parts in the big pots. They just chalk it up to bad luck, when they shouldn't.

September Goals

Labor Day weekend was fun. I played golf twice (rare for me on the weekends) and shot well both days, so I judge it a success. Other than that, lots of swimming and partying with friends and neighbors. I played a little bit Friday evening and last night, and things seem to be going as before, but the few days off at least left me refreshed. And gave me some time to think about goals.

1. 10,000 hands. I won't force this one, as it really depends on what time is left over after work and family, and how tired I am. 10k makes a good target for me, though. 4 tables at a time max.
   
2. Participate in poker communities. In order to make it objective, I'll say 100 meaningful posts across forums and blogs. That's not a lot for many of you, but for us full-time-jobbers, it seems reasonable. I'll have to remember to keep track of it, so I can measure it.
3. Review my own play. I try to review every session -- mostly looking at hands I got significantly involved with. To make this goal more easy to achieve (but still valuable), I'll set a 75% of hands played threshold. In other words, if I play 10,000 hands, I need to review 7,500 of them.
4. Actively study 10 CR videos. Many times I will watch, and maybe not even pay full attention. Again, many of you who play full time will view way more than 10, but for me, I need to make sure that I'm also devoting time to other study.
5. Tighten up UTG relative to Button VPIP. In general, I've gotten feedback on this blog and elsewhere that perhaps I need to play more straightforward, and there is some merit to that thought. I feel like I think well enough to play OK against decent players, but I probably get too fancy against and overestimate a lot of the micro opponents I face. I can't control their cards, but part of playing more straightforwardly is to get tight UTG. So, I want my UTG VPIP to be half my button VPIP this month. No more raising suited connectors and one-gappers to balance my preflop raising from UTG this month ;).
6. Practice hand-reading. I'm trying to pay attention to hands I'm not involved with at the tables, but that is hard to measure at the end of the month, so I will do something extra. As part of my session reviews, I will filter for hands that go to showdown, and will put players on ranges, and will make a guess of their hands before PT shows me the cards. For now, I will go through the exercise for 2,500 hands. The important part is to put them on a range, but that is difficult, so I'll just keep track of how many times I make the correct guess by showdown. Hopefully just going through the exercise will help me get better, but that will be pretty subjective.

OK, that's probably enough goals for the month.

August -- Ouch

Well, August is in the books for me, and it was pretty frigging ugly. I played so-so, certainly room for improvement there, and ran absolutely terrible. I played significantly better than a lot of my competition, but wtf, I better be able to do that at this level. I got a lot of money in this month as a considerable favorite, but my opponents got there way more than their share.

At one point, I wrote about being frustrated because we keep score using money, and I have been languishing at the lowest stakes for a long time (41k hands of breakeven poker @ 25NL), but being happy about how I was playing and improving. Well, I still think that I'm improving, but taking a hard look at myself after participating in CR low limit and other blogs and forums, I realize that I've got a long way to go still in my development. I work hard at the non-play part of my development -- given my work and family schedule, it's hard for me to get the table hours in, but I can and do find time for reading, writing, and thinking about the game. Translating that study and knowledge into action at the tables is pretty questionable, contributing to another chunk of loss. From that standpoint, there is a silver lining: I'm getting my poker table education pretty cheaply.

The next thing I'd like to do, but it will be difficult for me, is to take this crew concept another step farther than just blogs. I've got some ideas here, and perhaps I'll post them separately. My issue is time: job, kids' sports and school activities, tennis one night a week, golf (at least) once a week, and a wife who for some reason actually wants to spend more time with me all make it hard to be available for group activities on a predictable basis. I'm also toying with the idea of hiring a coach, if I can find one for a reasonable amount.

OK, enough thoughts, here are the pictures.

I tried to tighten up my game some (I usually run a tad higher VPIP, but not much). It looks like I'm pretty nitty getting to showdown, but even so, I'm not even winning 50% of those times. Since I'm fairly aggressive, it doesn't look like I'm calling down too much, but I may be transparent, so that my opponents are only sticking around when they've beat me...I'll need to look at that some.


Sample size is a bit small, but it looks like I'm too loose in the first couple spots, especially UTG. I also am showing down higher percentage from UTG and MP, so maybe I'm falling in love with good looking starting hands. But I'm usually going to be OOP, and therefore less inclined to show down. Another thing to look out for.


Perhaps further evidence of being weak-tight, as I'm losing money when not showing down. For those who don't know this program (and you should check it out, it's called PokerEV, and there's a big thread about it on the 2p2 software forum), the red and blue lines represent showdown hands. The red line represents what you should have won according to equity when the money went in. The blue line represents the money you actually won. The green line is your total winning (or losing, for me). So, the gap between blue and green is how I'm doing when not showing down a hand, and I'm folding more often than not. This may actually be OK at micro stakes, as I'm not as likely to bluff or get bluffed, but it may indicate I'm playing scared as well.


This is the luck graph from PokerEV, and it's pretty self explanatory. This is a really nice little tool in a downswing to prevent a total lack of confidence.


Well, at least I had a couple dozen hands in the green :).

Here's looking to September. Oh, and if anyone from Full Tilt happens to be reading this....please turn off the doom switch on my account!

Catching up on some hands

I've been playing a little bit, mostly working and finishing Professional No Limit Hold'em. I'd recommend the book, but it was not mind-blowing. The authors have talked about this being a foundation for the 2nd, and possibly more, volumes. I could see that, and I am looking forward to whenever the next books come out. It would actually be pretty interesting to see one of the CR pros play according to some of the book's recommendations, or to have one of the authors do a guest video. Anyway, here are some hands.

Hand 1: Only a few hands on villain.

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter, Courtesy of PokerZion.com

SB ($15.80)
BB ($14.65)
Hero ($25)
MP ($25.80)
CO ($54.30)
Button ($26.75)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Kh, Ah.
Hero raises to $0.95, 2 folds, Button raises to $3.95, 2 folds, Hero raises to $13.15, Button calls $8.25.

I alternate here between calling and raising, but out of position, I'm more likely to raise.

Flop: ($25.70) Qd, Th, 6s (2 players)
Hero bets $12.8 (All-In), Button calls $12.80.

I'm probably not folding out much that beats me, but I'm pretty committed with overs and the gutshot, not to mention the back door flush. Perhaps I fold out another AK. OK?

Turn: ($51.30) 3c (2 players, 1 all-in)
.

River: ($51.30) 6c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $51.30

Results below:
Hero has Kh Ah (one pair, sixes).
Button has Qh Qc (full house, queens full of sixes).
Outcome: Button wins $51.30.

Hand 2: Villain is LAG preflop, but settles down to kind of middle of the road postflop.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $25.10
BB: $26.05
UTG: $9.75
MP: $33.35
CO: $48.10
BTN: $25.25

Preflop: Hero is dealt Ad Kc (6 Players)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.85, BTN folds, Hero raises to $2.80, BB folds, CO calls $1.95

Flop: ($5.85) 5s Ah Ts (2 Players)
Hero bets $5.85, CO calls $5.85

Turn: ($17.55) 5s Ah Ts 3c (2 Players)
Hero bets $7.40, CO calls $7.40

River: ($32.35) 5s Ah Ts 3c Qc (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks

I think everything up to the river is pretty standard. On the river is check/call the best line here? If I bet, I think most of the time I get called, it's with a better hand, and while I'm probably in trouble calling, there is a chance that he bluffs or at least bets a hand he thinks may be good since I checked. I normally don't like check/calling on the river after having the lead in the hand, but that may be a holdover from my LHE days, as for some reason, I see more plausible opportunities to do so.

Pot Size: $32.35 ($1.60 Rake)

Results:
CO had Ac Jd (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$16.05)
Hero had Ad Kc (a pair of Aces) and WON (+$14.70)

Hand 3: This one is bad. It's a good example of how marginal/poor play early in the hand can screw you over. This is how I tilt...I talk myself into things that when I'm playing well I merely consider and then discard. I end up being too aggressive at first and then calling down when shown resistance. No balance.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $31.30
BB: $25.00
Hero (UTG): $40.15
CO: $20.00
BTN: $34.20

CO posts $0.25
Preflop: Hero is dealt Td Kh (5 Players)
Hero raises to $1.25, CO folds, BTN calls $1.25, SB calls $1.15, BB calls $1.00

I would not normally make this play, but there was some table context. I had been raising a fair amount, with decent cards, and for the most part people were folding (LOL at this hand, though). The button is very tight preflop, and the BB is also pretty tight, so all in all, not a terrible stealing situation, but definitely marginal at these limits.

Flop: ($5.25) 2d Qh Ah (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $3.60, 2 folds, BB calls $3.60

I was most worried about SB. Button likely has a pair or he would reraise, and BB could have a lot since pot odds were really good. Really, though, this is a good spot to not c-bet and just hope to spike my gutshot. Also, this bet is going to either commit me to the pot, or if I end up folding, it will have cost a lot. This is one of the commitment concepts from PNL. It would have been OK to put a bet in here with the intent of stealing, but with such a large field, I'm not stealing anything.

Turn: ($12.45) 2d Qh Ah 7h (2 Players)
BB bets $6.25, Hero calls $6.25

The turn donk threw me a bit, as I would have expected a flush to c/r me, so I thought that this more of a feeler bet. I almost pushed, and perhaps that would have been better as I have the NFD and still the gutshot in case he's not already flushed, and it would fold a lot of non-flush hands, and *possibly* (although doubtfully) a low flush. But I turn passive and call, which is likely the worst option of all, as I'm not getting odds if behind.

River: ($24.95) 2d Qh Ah 7h Jc (2 Players)
BB bets all-in for $13.90, Hero calls $13.90

I'm not at all sure about the river call, but getting 3:1 with the nuts if he doesn't have a flush, I think that it's OK. Villain has been pretty aggro postflop.

Pot Size: $52.75 ($2.60 Rake)

Results:
BB had 6h 4h (a flush, Ace high) and WON (+$25.15)
Hero had Td Kh (a straight, Ace high) and LOST (-$25.00)

Professional No Limit

@pkr_brat: I tried to get to your blog through your profile, but I got a message that said profile unavailable. Leave me a link to your blog in a comment, and I'll join in the discussion there.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Real life has once again intruded. I've been playing very little, and what playing I've done has not had such great results. I am not playing my A game, but not horrible, either. The cards just won't get there for me, or more accurately they get there too often for my opponents. I've been glancing at PokerEV (great sanity-keeping utility, although I'm not using its more powerful analysis capabilities), and I'm up to an 8-buyin gap between Sklansky bucks and actual winnings on my all-ins. That's over only 7,000 hands, so not good. What is good is that I'm feeling more and more confident in my player reads, and my decisions are better and better, which is especially good in the face of a rotten run of cards.

I've been reading Professional No Limit Hold'em for the past week or so. I'm almost done. It's well written (easy to read), but I'm struggling to apply (or how hard to apply) the biggest concept in the book -- SPR. If you haven't read the book, SPR stands for Stack to Pot Ratio, specifically taken at the beginning of the flop. Interestingly, if you play full stacks (100 BB), make a 4BB raise, and are called in one place, you have close to the worst SPR for a top pair type of hand. You don't get to an ideal SPR heads up with 100 BB stacks until you make about a 10x raise.

As more discussion evolves around this concept, it will be interesting to see what sort of impact the book has on the online game and how important SPR will be to the 6-max games specifically. A lot of SPR seems to apply more easily to lower live games for a couple reasons. For one, buy-ins are capped below 100BB, at least in the games around here. With smaller effective stacks, SPR goes up for the same preflop raise. More importantly, though, is that even with a largish raise, there are a lot of multiway pots, so the P in SPR goes up.

But online, even at the micro stakes, when someone puts in a pot-sized raise (much less a 4x raise), the pot will be HU. So, will we see a bunch of SPR-inspired short stackers? I think the benefits of playing a full stack still outweigh the SPR benefits, assuming we are on average more competent than our opponents. The goal behind SPR is to maximize your expectation in large pots, which is also one of the reasons to buy in full. There are several threads on 2+2 where the authors participate, and they are running a study session as well, so I'm sure this will be fleshed out more.

I'll try to get some hands posted soon, and make the way around the blogs to comment on others.

Joining the crowd...

I've noticed that at least a couple other bloggers have begun to post their big hands. I originally thought that's what I would do here, but instead I looked for interesting hands, and didn't even post as much as I wanted. Well if it's good enough for DODGYKEN and others, it's good enough for me, so am going to do at least a few posts of big hands, whether lost or won. For me, a big hand will be defined as 50 BB. My default will be to not post results.

I've regularly reviewed my biggest hands, and for the most part think I know whether I played them OK or poorly (and I do play far too many poorly). So, I haven't posted before. But actually, I think posting my crap hands -- even where I know what I did wrong -- will be somewhat like a penance for them. Also, there may be hands that I think I played well that you all may find problems, and if we've got blind spots in our big hands, that's deadly.

So, here goes with the first few. If you're curious about results, I'll be happy to post them later, just let me know.

Hand 1: Villain is 77/4 preflop :).

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $22.60
BB: $14.20
UTG: $12.65
Hero (CO): $25.00
BTN: $14.60

Preflop: Hero is dealt Kc Kh (5 Players)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.95, BTN calls $0.95, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.25) 4c 6c Jd (2 Players)
Hero bets $2.25, BTN raises all-in to $13.65, Hero calls $11.40

Start with an easy one?

Hand 2: Villain is loose passive over not that many hands.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 4 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $34.80
BB: $10.00
UTG: $17.10
BTN: $31.15

Preflop: Hero is dealt Jc Ac (4 Players)
UTG raises to $0.50, BTN folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BB folds, UTG calls $1.25

Flop: ($3.75) 9c 6h 5c (2 Players)
Hero bets $3.00, UTG calls $3.00

Turn: ($9.75) 9h (2 Players)
Hero bets $7.30, UTG calls $7.30

I assume it's OK to fire a second barrel here. Not sure how much fold equity I've got (probably not a lot), but I have a fair amount of pot equity, and I'm out of position. In position, I would usually check behind, given the opportunity.

River: ($24.35) Jd (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets all-in for $5.05, Hero calls $5.05

When he didn't raise the turn, I thought it was most likely he was on a draw, so I thought my best chance to win when I paired on the river was to have him try to bluff.

Hand 3: Less than 20 hands with villain, nothing to report for reads.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $7.20
Hero (BB): $24.65
UTG: $15.50
CO: $22.00
BTN: $14.30

CO posts $0.25
Preflop: Hero is dealt Jd Ah (5 Players)
UTG folds, CO checks, BTN raises to $1.10, SB folds, Hero raises to $3.65, CO folds, BTN calls $2.55

I've been experimenting with more 3 bets out of the blinds versus button raises, and I think that this is at the low end of a legitimate 3-bet (and I've yet to begin fooling around with 3-betting junk).

Flop: ($7.65) Qd 9h Kd (2 Players)
Hero bets $6.10, BTN raises all-in to $10.65, Hero calls $4.55

I assume HU you're c-betting most everything you 3-bet, but maybe not on a board this likely to hit villain, who will not be able to get bluffed out of a pot if he hit it? My thinking is to fold out the pocket pairs that did not hit, as even if he's pretty committed, that is a hard flop to call with an underpair. But if that's the case, shouldn't I just be pushing?

Thanks for the ideas/encouragement

Thanks for the good ideas in response to my last post. I've not done any actual pokering, and hardly any study/reading/review, so I feel a bit refreshed. It helps that I've been prepping for and participating in a customer meeting the last few days ;).

Over the next couple days, I'm going to catch up on my PT reviews, try to catch up on some blogs, and maybe watch a video or two. But I probably won't have much time to play. I actually feel OK from a confidence standpoint, I'm just frustrated by the results. So, I don't think I'll drop a level or anything to regain confidence. I may drop a table (or two), but I sometimes do that regardless of how I'm running, just because it's a little changeup, and I can really focus on all the hands I'm not involved with, trying to put everyone on hands, etc. I actually probably don't do that as much as I should, from a learning standpoint.

All the ideas mentioned were good ones, and I appreciate you guys taking the time to respond to a semi-whine post. Hopefully, I won't be making many more of those ;).

Screw you, Full Tilt

August has started off with a bang. I'm down 7 buy-ins in a whopping 1500 hands. PokerEV says my Sklansky bucks are positive over that time (for those of you who don't know about this tool, it -- among other things -- will analyze your showdown hands and compare what you should have won to what you did win). There's an 8 buy-in difference between my Sklansky bucks and my showdown winnings! In 1500 frigging hands!

So, the good news is that I'm getting my money in well, at least in the hands that go to showdown, but the short term results have been absolutely brutal. This actually goes back to about the middle of last month, so it's been a few weeks, and I guess I don't have the mental toughness to just shrug it off...it's bothering me when I play.

I don't know how much my play actually changes in downswings because I remind myself not to let it affect me, and I have not done anything obviously stupid. My VPIP, preflop raise, and aggression numbers over the last few weeks are about the same as normal, so the losses are not putting me on insane monkey tilt. That said, I'm sure there are some at least subtle forms of tilt that come into play, because I'm not 100% focused on the game (thinking about results and bad luck, and steaming a bit in hands). When you're not 100% focused, you're not playing your best, so like I said, I'm sure it affects me somehow, just not sure how it manifests.

More than anything, it affects my enjoyment of the game, though, and that's where I wish I could just not pay attention to the bad luck. I'm fortunate in the sense that I don't rely on poker for the bills, but I'm also competitive, and have been languishing at 25 NL for far too long -- 27k hands, and I'd like to level up at some point ;).

So, what do you all do to pull yourself out of a mental funk?

Devil of a hand

This ended up being a bit longer than I thought.

I'm trying to catch back up and look over some hands from July at the same time. I've been looking at how I play pair hands, as I feel like although I win with them overall, a lot of times, I win too little or lose too much with them. I don't know of an easy way to get to them in Poker Tracker (the closest is filtering for pocked pairs), but I was trying to evaluate hands I set-mined and then hit the set. A lot of people -- me included sometimes -- justify pre-flop calls with medium and low pairs because of the stacking potential. I assert that we don't stack our opponents (deep stacked, anyway) that often when we hit, as they have to have a hand worth stacking off.

For the hands I hit my sets when calling preflop (as opposed to being the aggressor preflop), in fact, I did not stack anyone with more than half a stack. Now, I'll caveat this by saying that this is only over 11k hands or so, meaning that this is not a large sample size by any means. And it's certainly possible that either I'm playing these poorly or am too easy to read, so I don't get full value when I hit.

In July, the two biggest pots I played after hitting a set when calling pre-flop were when I was up against flush draws. The money went all in on the flop in both hands, and the flush got there both times. That's poker, but because the pots you lose with sets are likely to be big ones, you need to account for them when evaluating your implied odds.

I think that while you're a little worse than 7:1 against hitting your flush, you should really be looking at about 10:1 implied odds when set mining. I'm sure someone has written about this somewhere, but I'm just kind of thinking out loud here. Anyway, after backing out the two big cooler hands I mentioned above, I still only won about 4 times my set mining investment, far short of where I need to be.

So, on to the hands. I looked at a couple 66 hands where I set mined and hit (finally the post title reference ;) ). These were dug out of Poker Tracker, and I didn't think much of them at the time, so I don't have specific opponent notes, and in fact don't have that many hands on the villains.

Hand 1:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $14.70
Hero (BB): $33.65
UTG: $7.60
CO: $33.75
BTN: $11.55

Preflop: Hero is dealt 6c 6s (5 Players)
UTG folds, CO raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 6h Qc 3d (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.80, Hero raises to $4.00, CO folds

Here, maybe I should not checkraise the flop, since it is pretty dry. No turn cards really scare me, so I could wait, and then try it then. As an aside, I don't float all that much, and hands like this are probably good opportunities to do so, or to take the same line if the 6 were instead a 5.

Hand 2:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $15.80
BB: $50.65
UTG: $27.95
MP: $54.70
CO: $9.15
Hero (BTN): $26.80

Preflop: Hero is dealt 6h 6d (6 Players)
UTG raises to $0.85, MP calls $0.85, CO folds, Hero calls $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB folds

Flop: ($3.65) 6c Kc 4s (4 Players)
SB checks, UTG checks, MP checks, Hero bets $3.00, 3 folds

I think my line is OK here, as I would like to protect against a flush draw, and I could hope that he's slowplaying AK, or even AA. Since he had a big stack, I would like to try and start building it on the flop.

I've been slacking!

Sorry I haven't been posting at all, it's been more than a week since my last post. For the month, though, I think I did a decent job commenting on other blogs, even when I didn't update mine. I should be able to dedicate some time this week, but I've thought that before. In lieu of specific hands, here are some general thoughts.

If anyone would be up for some semi-regular sweat sessions on either FT or Stars, leave a comment or send me a PM on Cardrunners. Michaeyk and I are trying to set up a weekly time, but he's out of commission for a bit. It might also be cool to have a group sweat. I'm only really able to participate after 8:00 Pacific, unfortunately. I should be good entertainment, as I'm trying to open my game up a little, and I feel a bit foolish in some of the hands.

I've got 10k hands in July, and it won't go much higher. It was a swingy month, and if it ends today, I will have eked out a 2 PTBB/100 month.

I had one streak of a few hundred hands where every big all in went the opposite way it should, which was unfortunate since I got my money in good in most of them, although my KK sucked out on AA once. The most annoying was when my BB special (Q3 on a Q33 flop) lost to AJ -- who bet/called the flop!! -- when turn and river were running jacks. He actually pushed the turn. LOL, I guess the games will always be good as long as that happens.

Most of my losses were poor play on my part, though, as I try to make some game changes. I'm recognizing my bad plays quickly, though, and still winning in spite of making some game changes, so that feels good. Kind of like in golf where you're making a swing change and it's uncomfortable at first, but you're still able to hold your own on the course.

It will be interesting to see how/if this blog experiment changes in August. I've enjoyed it so far, although I spend even less time on the forums than I normally do, and I need to correct that.

Some hands for Noel

Haven't been playing much unfortunately, but here are a few hands where I am pushing back more than usual. I play low, and try to play ABC most of the time -- not sure how well I succeed there -- but am also trying to pick some new spots to show aggression early. My stats should indicate to anyone looking that I'm somewhere between solid and nitty, IMO.

Hand 1: Villain is 16/12, and aggressive postflop. He's been pushing some folks around (but not me -- the 2 people between us had just left).

$0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 4 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $25.00
BB: $11.70
UTG: $25.00
Hero (BTN): $33.55

Preflop: Hero is dealt Th Jh (4 Players)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.95, SB raises to $3.25, BB folds, Hero raises to $10.00

Hand 2: Villain is 27/21/2.8, and has floated me 3 or 4 times straight when he's had position, and he'd taken pots from me when I missed and didn't second barrel. He'd also squeezed a couple times.

$0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $38.60
BB: $16.75
UTG: $30.30
MP: $23.15
CO: $8.40
Hero (BTN): $24.90

Preflop: Hero is dealt 6s 8s (6 Players)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO folds, Hero calls $0.25, SB raises to $1.25, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.00

Flop: ($3) 5c Td 4h (2 Players)
SB bets $2.50, Hero raises to $10.50

Hand 3: Villain is 35/0/2.5 over 80 hands, but I don't think I had a ton of hands on him when this went down.

$0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 4 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $15.45
BB: $11.25
Hero (UTG): $31.65
BTN: $35.15

Preflop: Hero is dealt Jh Qh (4 Players)
BB calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.15, BTN calls $1.15, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.80) 6s 6d Kh (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1.25, Hero raises to $5.00